1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a fluid delivery system. More specifically, the present invention relates to a support device used as a part of a fluid delivery system for supporting and protecting elements thereof, e.g. pump, fluid container, tubing, drip chamber, etc. of a fluid infusion system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is common for patient's having certain medical problems to require periodic premeasured infusions of fluid, such as medicaments or nutrients, into their bodies. Examples of such patients are those who may require nutrients to be delivered directly into their digestive tract periodically over long periods of time, or cancer patients who require exacting amounts of medication to be delivered intravenously at precise periods of time.
In the past, such patients required hospitalization for the time necessary to infuse the nutrient or medicaments in order to allow medical personnel to perform the infusions at the proper time and in the proper amounts. Such a procedure was extremely time consuming to the patient and also the hospital personnel, and had the potential of human error in calculation of infusion dosages and injection time intervals.
An improvement on the above procedure has been to employ a programmable pump to insure that the patient receives the proper infusion dosage at the proper time period, thus relieving medical personnel from constant monitoring of the patient, and from worrying about infusion amounts and time tables. Although the programmable pump greatly relieves medical personnel of time consuming care to the patient, the patient nevertheless remains bound to the hospital bed during the prolonged infusion periods.
A further improvement has been to develop an infusion system which can not only automatically infuse preset volumes of fluid into the patient on a predetermined time table, but also allow the patient to be ambulatory. U.S. Pat. No. 4,657,486 to Stemple et al. is exemplary of portable infusion systems of this type. Stemple discloses a portable infusion device which is automatically operable at selected time intervals to inject accurate amounts of fluid medication into a patient's body, and is also sufficiently compact and portable to allow the patient to be ambulatory while being attached to the infusion system.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,688,595 to Srebnik et al. is also exemplary of fluid delivery systems of this type. Srebnik discloses a delivery system which includes an integrally molded base to which elements of the delivery system, i.e., the pump, the fluid container, etc. can be connected. The base allows the entire fluid delivery system to be transportable as a unit and makes it possible for the patient to move about without the inconvenience of transporting a more cumbersome apparatus such as a prior art type infusion system affixed to a pole mounted on wheels.
Although there has been improvement in portable fluid delivery systems in the past, there nevertheless remain several inadequacies. First, fluid infusion systems generally include a programmable pump and a fluid delivery set comprising a fluid container, tubing, a pinch clamp, a drip chamber, etc. all connected as an integral unit. The container of the fluid delivery sets may be a flexible bag, a rigid glass or plastic bottle or a burette. Sometimes standard fluid delivery sets (i.e. sets intended for non-ambulatory use) include rather long tubular extensions to allow the fluid container to be placed on an infusion pole while the distal end of the tube can be attached to a bed ridden or non-ambulatory patient. These sets are generally ill suited for placement in a portable device such as that described by Srebnik et al. This is because the portable system requires significantly shorter tubing extension to properly operate. The excess tubing therefore becomes cumbersome and inhibitive of proper operation of the system and often becomes occluded or pinched off during ambulatory use. Alternatively, systems such as that shown by Stemple et al. require a unique "non-standard" tubing design in order to allow the fluid delivery set to be properly attached to the pump. This has been found to be unsatisfactory in that it requires the hospital or other facility to stock the "non-standard" fluid delivery sets for use in the ambulatory type systems and standard sets for all other uses, since the "non-standard" ambulatory sets shown by Stemple et al. are generally unsuitable for use on standard non-ambulatory systems.